Being against President Bush's policy to "surge" 21,500 additional troops into Iraq is easy. Doing something about it is not, as the Democratic-controlled Congress is discovering.

The non-binding resolution opposing the "surge" that passed the House on Feb. 16 has died quietly in the Senate. Rep. John Murtha's plan to impose stricter training requirements has been found unworkable, as have several different suggestions to restrict the Pentagon's budget. Micromanaging the war is proving most difficult. More to the point, micromanaging the war will not end the war.

Wars end with peace treaties. We invaded Iraq in 2003 as liberators, defeated the brutal government of Saddam Hussein and installed a new, legitimate government through elections. That war of liberation is long over; it is now time to come to terms with the legitimate successor government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, negotiate for peace and end our occupation.

True, since 2003, a new war has developed in Iraq. This new war developed, no doubt, because of the insufficient number of troops deployed to Iraq in the first place and a host of other "errors" during our occupation since. The net result of these "errors" is, in the immortal words of Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Serious though this new turf war may be, it is not our war. It was not authorized by Congress. To begin an orderly, phased redeployment of American forces from Iraq, Congress needs to do what the Constitution says it should do: legislate. It needs to pass a joint resolution over the president's veto requiring the immediate negotiation of a treaty of peace with the Maliki government.

To be sure, the Bush administration will not be able to complete the negotiations in the less than two years of its remaining term. Negotiating a treaty of peace is exceptionally complex and difficult. But it could do much excellent work settling the myriad details that have to be negotiated in any peace treaty — transfer of land now occupied by U.S. forces, levels of military and foreign aid, establishing a claims commission, etc.

More important, once Congress had passed a law making a peace treaty our war aim, President Bush as executive agent for the Congress could begin immediately an orderly, phased redeployment of American forces.

Such an orderly redeployment is a necessary corollary of the negotiations for the peace treaty ending the 2003 war of liberation. Such a redeployment is much too complicated a military operation for the Congress to micromanage via funding cuts or non-binding resolutions. But Congress can assist President Bush by fixing a peace treaty as our war aim and by making that goal the law of the land.

With many of the details already negotiated by the Bush administration and with troop levels reduced in an orderly manner during the intervening two years, the next president will be in a position to conclude the congressionally mandated peace treaty expeditiously, submit it to the Senate for ratification, and complete the redeployment of the remaining troops in an orderly manner.

The end of the American military occupation would be in sight because Congress would have discharged its constitutional responsibility to legislate. It would have passed a law, and both presidents — this one and the next — would now be functioning in their proper roles as the executive agents of Congress, which the Constitution defines as "taking care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Brien Hallett is an associate professor at the University of Hawai'i and author of "The Lost Art of Declaring War." He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.